Modern Amelia Earhart Will Attempt to Complete Famous Aviator's Around-the-World Flight in June

By Allie Goolrick

Published Mar 14 2014 06:21 PM EDT

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As the world grapples with the baffling disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight 370, perhaps the most famous missing plane mystery in history will soon get a second chance – and this time, with a happy ending. That is, if 30-year-old pilot Amelia R. Earhart has anything to say about it.

You read that right: Amelia Rose Earhart was named after the famed aviator who vanished on her first attempt at a female-piloted flight around the world in 1937 – and it just so happens that she shares the same passion for flying.

"My parents wanted to give me a good female role model and give me a name that would spark conversation and hopefully lead me to adventure, and it looks like that's what happened," Earhart told KPHO.

In June, she will attempt to recreate her namesake’s ill-fated flight around the world, a journey that will take two weeks, 100 hours and cover more than 24,000 nautical miles. Earhart will embark from Oakland, Calif. and traverse the globe on the adventure of a lifetime, and one that has been a long time coming.

“I’ve been having this conversation my entire life,’’ Earhart told the Today show. “It always comes up. When I think about the best way to honor being a namesake of Amelia, it’s all about adventure…So this is my version of adventure and my best way to keep Amelia’s spirit alive.”

After years of fielding people’s disappointment when she confessed she wasn’t a pilot, Earhart finally gave in and began taking flying lessons in 2004. She has already recreated one of Earhart’s flights: In 2012, she flew from Oakland, Calif., to Miami following in the same route as Earhart’s first transcontinental flight.

The upcoming flight will be the longest that Earhart has ever attempted. Like on the original Earhart's flight, she'll fly in a single-engine aircraft, although a decidedly more modern PC-12 NG aircraft. Where Amelia (Mary) Earhart traveled with co-pilot and navigator Fred Noonan, the modern Earhart will be joined by adventurer Patrick Carter, who will serve as co-pilot on the trip. The flight path includes stops in Miami, Brazil, Africa, India and Australia with a final stop at Howland Island in the South Pacific — the stop that Earhart and Noonan never made.

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It’s in symbolically completing that final leg of the journey that Earhart hopes to add a happy footnote to the history books.

If Earhart finishes the trek, she won't be the first woman to recreate the flight, but she will be the youngest. Admittedly, 75 years later, a round-the-world flight is less risky: The duo will have modern technology, notably a GPS to navigate, rather than the moon and stars that Noonan and Earhart relied on. They will also be traveling in a $4.6 million plane, donated by sponsors, with one of the best safety records on the market.

But for Earhart, who is a former anchor from NBC Denver affiliate KUSA, the flight is as much about honoring Amelia Earhart’s legacy as it is about inspiring young girls to get into aviation. Dubbed ‘The Amelia Project,’ the flight is sponsored by the Fly with Amelia Foundation, an organization that Earhart founded last year to promote aviation for girls and grants flight scholarships to young women between the ages of 16 and 18.

"There are so few women in flight," Earhart told KPHO. "Six percent of pilots are female. So, we'd like to boost that number up and show that you don't have to be a tomboy to go out to the airport. All kinds of women are in aviation. I'm one of them, and luckily, I have the perfect name to hopefully get girls excited”